As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Peripheral Component Interconnect Express Generation 3 (PCIe 3.0) is an existing high speed serial bus standard that communicates across lanes that use differential signaling to support one or more full duplex byte streams to transport data packets. Standard-size PCIe 3.0 expansion connectors are provided on a computer motherboard inside a computer system chassis (e.g., desktop or tower computer, server) and have slots for edge insertion of printed circuit board (PCB) expansion (or add-in) cards to add functionality to the computer system via a PCI expansion bus on the motherboard. A standard PCIe 3.0 expansion card has an edge connector having pins that correspond to the pins within the expansion connector slot on the motherboard. Each lane connects to a host processor of the information handling system through the PCIe 3.0 expansion bus. The number of lanes supported by a given standard PCIe 3.0 expansion connector and expansion card connector may be one (x1), four (x4), eight (x8), twelve (x12), sixteen (x16) with connector length increasing with the number of lanes. Standard PCIe 3.0 expansion cards are available in various physical sizes (having various card lengths and card widths), and a PCIe 3.0 expansion card can fit into an expansion connector slot that is the same length or longer, but typically cannot fit into an expansion connector slot that is shorter (there are open-ended connectors that allow longer cards to fit in shorter slots).
SFF-8639 (also known as U.2) is a computer interface standard developed by the SSD form factor working group (SFFWG) for connecting 2.5″ and 3.5″ non-volatile memory solid state drives (SSDs) to computer systems. A U.2 connector has multiple pins for connecting four PCIe lanes and other signals to a mating connector of a SSD.
As shown in FIG. 1, a tower computer system 100 has been provided with multiple front access flex-bays 130 that each accept a 3.5″ SSD carrier 120 that is accessible to a user, so as to allow multiple SSD carriers 120A-120D to be installed and/or different SSD carriers 120 to be swapped into and out of the computer system 100 by the user. Each of the multiple flex bays 130 has a blind mate system-side U.2 connector for connection to the pins of a mating drive-side U.2 connector. The multiple system-side U.2 connectors are each mechanically coupled to a backplane board and electrically coupled to PCIe lanes and other signal traces on the backplane board that connect to corresponding components on the computer system motherboard and/or to components elsewhere in the system. Each system-side U.2 connector extends outward into the flex bay 130 to present a connector slot for receiving connector pins of a SSD that is inserted into the flex bay 130.